Radio communication systems that transmit selective call messages to SCRs (selective call radios), such as cellular phones and pagers, have been in use for some time now. The type of selective call messages transmitted to SCRs range anywhere from personal messaging (e.g., pages, telephony) to information services (e.g., advertising, news, weather, etc.).
Although ideally it would be desirable to transmit and receive selective call messages in an error-free manner, environmental disturbances can cause irreparable errors in messages received by a SCR. At times such errors may be undetectable, and may result in the decoding of a corrupt selective call message. For information services, the ability to receive and decode messages at a SCR in a manner that allows reconstruction of the original message without error is important to a service provider of the radio communication system, and especially important to sponsors of paid advertisement messages.
Sponsors of advertisements expect that a service provider will provide a communication medium capable of communicating advertisement messages to targeted SCRs in an error-free manner. The importance of message integrity is apparent in cases where an advertisement includes an offer for the sale of goods at specified prices and specified times. An irreparable and/or undetectable error in an advertisement message received by a SCR could inadvertently result in misquoted information in the advertisement, e.g., a misquoted price. Such an error would cause substantial dissatisfaction amongst SCR users who may have relied on the advertisement information they received.
Accordingly, a need exists for a communication medium that substantially eliminates the foregoing disadvantages described in the prior art.